


The Anachronometer

by graestu



Category: Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:55:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23410030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graestu/pseuds/graestu
Summary: The Anachronometer is the thing that makes things make sense. It's broken.
Kudos: 4





	The Anachronometer

The Doctor was twitching nervously and pacing anxiously around the TARDIS console. Frantically he watched its dials and read outs, fiddling with a button here, adjusting a switch there.

A vital component, the anachronometer, had broken.

As Nardole repaired it in his workshop, Bill stood by to hurry back with it as quickly as possible.

While it was disconnected, The Doctor needed to do its job of monitoring and regulating the connection between time and space, otherwise something weird and unexpected might happen.

"All done!" said Nardole brightly.

With a sigh of relief, he pushed aside his magnifying glass and handed the anachronometer to Bill.

Resembling a small glass jam jar, it's pale green glass was criss crossed with a web of fine silver wires.

Bill put it into its protective case for her race against time and space.

"Allons-y!" called Nardole as he waved her off from the doorway. And neither of them knew why.

They blinked, trying to figure it out, and in that second, within a few steps, Bill was lost.

The TARDIS corridor stretched out behind her, further than she had come. And no sign of Nardole.

In front of her, the same, it curved ahead, empty.

She didn't know which way was which anymore.

She stumbled past the same circular wall markings and through the same supporting archways.

She felt dizzily like being in a chase sequence of a cheap cartoon.

Always running. What was after her? Where was she going? No corners. No junctions. No doors. Dead end.

Bill screamed in frustration, and thumped the wall angrily.

There was a distant sound of a bell ringing in pain.

A deep breath. She turned. Ran back. Another dead end.

Backwards and forwards, for gradually shorter distances, she was blocked in with nowhere to go.

Suddenly, sprouting through the floor, shot a tree root like an octopus tentacle. Gripping her leg, it was pulling her down. Bill tugged to free herself, and fell through the wall, which rippled, closed around her, and vanished.

She was outside, stranded in a strangely familiar place, she remembered perhaps from a story.

On the opposite riverbank, a blonde woman in a Union Jack jumper laughed, then the short haired man in a leather coat spoke and pointed to the water. Jerkily, they walked away backwards. Despite being close enough, neither of them were aware of Bill shouting for help.

It started to rain. The drops washed streaks through the view until it as completely gone, as if removing the top layer of a painting.

Behind it was the TARDIS, tucked inside the cave on the desolate grey moon, exactly where The Doctor had brought it to keep it safe and hidden while the anachronometer was unconnected.

The mission was complete, Bill went inside, where unexpectedly, it's the end of part one. Yes, just there. Not even at an exciting bit designed to make you read part two. It just stops. Meanwhile, Next Time? Bill goes into the TARDIS and The Doctor puts the anachronometer back in its rightful place. The end.

There will now be a short intermission.

The TARDIS was high over Cambridge, On a leisurely sightseeing tour. When an apple The Doctor was holding, Slipped and rolled out of the door.

Directly below in the orchard, Isaac Newton was having a doze. And some unknown force had determined, It would wallop him square on the nose.

From then on, he never stopped boasting, To the eminent men in his field, Of the apple that fell from a pear tree, And not only that - It was peeled!

Now back for part two.

The big swing doors of the TARDIS opened onto a plain white room with circular hollows on the walls, and not the dark library console room Bill was familiar with. In the centre was something vaguely resembling the console, in that it was a hexagonal table covered with switches and a glass column in the middle. Next to it, a young woman with brown curly hair, dressed in a maroon outfit. She moved towards the puzzled intruder.

"Hello," she said kindly to the girl she guessed was about nine years old. "My name's Nyssa."

The frightened little girl replied warily, "I'm Bill."

"This is the TARDIS," Nyssa explained, comfortingly. "You're quite safe."

"No. It's not," said Bill, backing away. "Doctor!" she shouted. "Doctor!"

"Did someone call?" came a booming voice from behind the console.

A man wearing a long multi coloured scarf jumped up, adding, with a beaming smile, "I'm The Doctor. And who might you be, my dear?"

"Bill," was the eight year old's small reply, shaking her head, disbelieving the man.

"I say, Bill," he roared, "I've got one of those. May I see?"

He indicated the case hanging on Bill's belt. She unclipped it and handed it over.

As a swap, he held out a paper bag. "Would you like a jelly baby?" he asked.

Bill took one, but put it in her jacket pocket for later.

The man looked in the bag with a disappointed sigh and shrugged.

"That's an anachronometer, isn't it, Doctor?" said Nyssa, as she fiddled with the console.

"Yes," was the extended, worried response.

"And if there were two so close together, would that cause disruptions in the Space Time Continuum as we know it?"

"It would indeed, Nyssa. It would indeed. But that's not the problem here. Oh no. The problem here, is that this is mine. It's the exact same one."

"So it'll cancel itself out?"

"Either that, or cause double the trouble," said The Doctor. "How thrilling!"

"What can you tell us, eh, Bill?" he wondered aloud, not expecting much help from the seven year old girl.

However, she was able to explain how The Doctor had given the anachronometer to Nardole, who had repaired it, and the weird diversions she had faced returning from the workshop.

"Nardole, you say? Not Adric? And you're called Bill, not Tegan."

Bill nodded.

"You see, Bill," said the man, having figured out a solution. "Adric took my anachronometer to repair it, and we've been keeping an eye on things until Tegan brings it back."

"All done!" said Adric, handing the repaired anachronometer in its case to Tegan, who dashed into the corridor too quickly, crashing into the wall. Bouncing off it weightlessly, too fast to control herself, she pinged along like a rubber ball down a spiral staircase. Never quite falling, and with time to shout 'Geronimo!' only once, without knowing why. She came to a sudden exhilarated stop at the console room door, and went in.

Without looking up, The Doctor said, "That was quick, Bill."

"That was quick," agreed Nardole. "But that's not Bill."

"Tegan! Fantastic!" cried The Doctor, delighted at such an unexpected reunion.

Tegan handed over the anachronometer, slightly disorientated.

"You've... er..." she said, drawing a circle in the air over her face. "Again. And redecorated. I don't like it."

"Several times," grinned he Doctor.

"Hang about," said Nardole. "The time you're from, you haven't seen The Doctor regenerate. You don't even know anything about it yet."

"Well, for that matter," Tegan snapped back, "What are you even doing here? You said it was quick, so how come you've got back before this bloke Bill, whoever he is?"

The Doctor clicked the anachronometer into its rightful place on the console, and Tegan slowly faded away.

"It's repaired," mused The Doctor, and Bill nodded.

To confirm his idea about the six year old's identity, he crouched down with a question.

"What's the only place in the universe named after how long it takes to get there?"

"I've BEEN there!" said the five year old Bill, whispering the answer so as not to spoil the surprise of Nyssa's next trip.

"That's one of mine, alright!" The Doctor said with a hearty laugh, clicking the anachronometer into its rightful place.

"Goodbye, Bill! Goodbye!"

Bill slowly faded away, and The Doctor and Nyssa warmly welcomed back Tegan as she slowly reappeared.

Bill was slowly reappearing, back to her correct age in her familiar console room.

"You took my last red jelly baby," smiled her Doctor. "And if you're not going to eat it, I'll have it back."

Bill's hand jumped to her pocket, expecting a trick. But it was there. And she did eat it.

And what is the only place in the universe that's named after how long it takes to get there?

The Doctor took Bill there in 'A Tortuous Route' / graestu / AO3 / 20 March 2020 !


End file.
